Auditing Justice

Management Group to Review City's Criminal Justice System

Public Financial Management Group (PFM), a Philadelphia-based advisory firm that specializes in government finance, has begun a two-month-long financial and operational review of the city's criminal justice system. Its findings will be used as a guide in writing the departmental budgets for the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD), the Orleans Parish Sheriff's Office and the city's court system, Criminal Justice Commissioner James Carter said at an April 12 meeting of the Orleans District Law Enforcement Council.

David Eichenthal, director of PFM's Chattanooga, Tenn., office, is leading the project. He said the company will conduct a full review of those departments' budgets, identify operational deficiencies in each and propose new and theoretically more effective strategies.

PFM has a consulting contract with New Orleans government going back to 2007, when it was hired for just under $1 million to develop a five-year plan to fix the city's finances. That yearlong contract has since been renewed five times — for a total value of nearly $4.5 million over the five-year period, city records show.

PFM will be back in town April 23 and May 7, one week before and one week after April 30, when the city puts out initial requests for departmental budget offers for the 2013 fiscal year. PFM is scheduled to have a draft report completed by late May or early June. — Charles Maldonado